Starship Reaches Orbit in Major SpaceX Milestone

Scott Morton spent nearly a decade at SpaceX as an engineering manager for Starship focused on software before leaving to found Revel, which builds software to help companies design, test, operate complex machines. I think we'd agree, Scott, that Starship is a complex, and multifaceted machine. But just your reaction, yeah, you've been inside the beast. Right? You understand how important this milestone was for for test flight 14. Yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, overall, this was a monumental step forward, like, actually going to orbit. I mean, that really meant that SpaceX and the FAA thought that, Starship was ready. You know, they did have a hiccup with one of the engines, but, you know, they deployed Starlink satellites, in orbit. And then they've also it sounds like they've successfully completed the d the first d orbit burn. So I think overall, this is like, I mean, if our internal SpaceX still, I would be seeing this as a massive success. When you the time you'd left SpaceX, you you were the program man software manager for the Starship program. Right? We we we talk a lot about the iterations on the hardware, the heat shield in particular, but generation's generation, those hardware changes they make. But software is is absolutely critical because the launch system and the spacecraft itself is essentially autonomous. Right? Explain that that part. Yeah. I mean, it's actually autonomous, I'd say, even further out on the kind of on the launch pad and getting ready for flight. But, yeah, you know, if you can plan for everything that you want to do with the vehicle and and code all that in software, it's a much easier kind of thing to reason through than having a lot of manual commanding. As much as you can automate as you possibly can, it's definitely the best approach. And even like the scenario that happened today, this was definitely fully planned for. There was software already ready to go for all these types of contingencies. I am familiar with over the air software updates for my Tesla vehicle. Right? And that gives, with existing hardware, new capabilities to the car, improves performance. How does that work in the context of of the most powerful rocket and and spacecraft launch system that that humankind's developed. Is it does it work the same way? At least, my time at at SpaceX, we could not kind of do over the air updates. I'm not sure where they are today on that. There are a lot of things that you can tweak, you know, parameters and things that you can update. But, generally, you want to have, you know, the software be quite locked down and not be kinda making changes, especially not on flight. I assume long term, they'll have some type of capability for this when you have, you know, vehicles on orbit for very long durations. But, at least in my term time on the pro on the program, you know, you wanted to have this offer very locked down. There's a lot that you need to make sure is, you know, kind of that you're operating within the bounds, of what is expected, and kind of not kind of going too far, off of those plans, in real time. When people kinda question whether or not a mission is successful against its original goals, one of the things that SpaceX always talks about is the data that is generated from whatever the outcome of the mission. How how do the software teams take the data, and then use it? Like, if there was a sort of iterative process on software, how meaningful is the data from the mission that's gathered? I mean, it's massive. And we're they're gonna spend weeks and weeks, probably actually months on this one, going through every single system, all the software that was run, literally point by point in some cases, like telemetry point by point to make sure everything performed as expected. So, yeah, the data is actually, I'd say, the most valuable thing coming out of this flight. They actually went to I just like you know, I was on the program from the very beginning. I think I was probably the first software engineer down in Boca Chica, Texas, known as Starbase. And the fact that it is now gone to orbit is just incredibly exciting for me. But, yeah, the most valuable thing coming out is all the data that they're gonna be going through. They I'm sure they've learned a tremendous amount from this flight. Take me back again to to to your time there. You know, in the when prior to SpaceX's IPO, like, the prospectus made it crystal clear that all of those kinda out of this world, but future business lines, they're all predicated on Starship working, being fully reusable, rapidly reusable. But when the program started, what was the kind of vision for Starship? Like, what were you all talking to each other about hoping to achieve with it at that time? Yeah. I mean, even back at the very beginning of the program, we had, you know, we had kind of CAD drawings of what is there today. I mean, this is exactly what we were hoping for and, what ultimately happened and and, obviously, much further beyond that, that Starship would be, you know, it takes takes people to Mars. That is a 100 what we were thinking about day to day as we're putting in the extremely long hours. So, yeah, I think, you know, this is exact this is like, for me, this is, like, absolutely incredible that we you know, Starship has gone to orbit. It is actually now successfully in the first year, burn, which is kinda one of the most concerning, I'd say, parts of the whole mission. But, yeah, I've been extremely exciting for everyone at SpaceX and and everyone that's contributed to it today.